site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

2
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Girls typically reach physical sexual maturity (adult secondary sexual characteristics) between the ages of 15 and 17

I'm going to stop you there, and I think this indicates a bit of juggling with a hidden agenda. That is the end stage of physical sexual maturity, but not the point at which fertility begins. Looking up the Tanner Scale, that is Stage V our friend is using, but girls can get pregnant at Stage IV (and the Tanner Scale describes physical changes and maturity which do not line up neatly with chronological age):

In 1970 Britain, boys reached the last Tanner stage, the postpubertal stage, on average at the age of 14.9 years and girls around the age of 14 depending on social class and the particular study. In the nearly fifty years since those studies, the ages at which children are beginning puberty has only declined: (as of 2018) "The age of puberty, especially female puberty, has been decreasing in western cultures for decades now [...] for example, at the turn of the 20th century, the average age for an American girl to get her period was 16 or 17. Today, that number has decreased to 12 or 13 years."

Girls can get pregnant before 15. Hell, in the right (wrong) circumstances, you can get a 9 year old pregnant (see some of the cases raised during in the aftermath of the overturning of Roe vs. Wade).

So when someone goes on about "girls are adult at 17, boys take longer, but we're criminalising poor harmless 18 year olds just for talking to a 16 year old", my antennae twitch and I do wonder "are you butt-hurt because you, a grown adult male, is considered a paedo just because she's 15 and you're 30?"

There really are no, or very few, honest and disinterested arguments on this topic. Everyone has an agenda and an axe to grind. And when we get this kind of careful logic-chopping and selective quotes of the Science! around specific ages, I get very damn suspicious as to motivation.

And then of course we get the "intelligent couples" figleaf. So "big brain if older me should have harem of nubile hotties no younger than 16 so they legal, but also no older than 16 so they not wizened hags of 26, that I can knock up to satisfy my breeding kink, all for the good of society of course!"

I'm going to stop you there, and I think this indicates a bit of juggling with a hidden agenda.

We need to stop assuming hidden agenda on this topic.

Like it or not lots of people can't distinguish between:

17 year old female with 25 year old male (lets say a college drop out guitarist in a band and a high school senior).

18 year old female with a 48 year old male (lets say a sleazy manager at a bar who sleeps with college waitresses for better shifts).

8 year old male with a 53 year old male (literal raping priest).

These are all wildly different but the dismissive rhetoric results in people failing to acknowledge that and putting everyone in the same bucket.

For an example of where this might be relevant - 27 year old guy goes to a club, assumes the girl he meets is over 21, but oops she used a fake ID and now he's a rapist. To me (and perhaps most of the posters here) this guy is obviously not a pedophile, but to say my mom "he should have known better, he must be a pedophile" is the obvious interpretation, and trying to engage results in a complete collapse.

Assume a poster has ill intent makes it much harder to actually engage with the substance.

I somewhat agree. I don’t think anyone including the 16 year olds father believes her 18 year old boyfriend having sex with her is a pedophile. Sure, maybe a cad but not a pedo.

Now if she is 16 and the guy is 25? That’s a lot more questionable (though far from having sex with kids).

I think the problem is we only have this ham fisted language of consent to separate good and bad sex. Once you have that as the only dividing line, you need to tie yourself in pretzels explaining why consent isn’t consent.

Instead, I would say pedos are people having sex with prepubescent kids. Such people should be killed. Grown men havint sex with post pubescent but young ladies should be viewed as bores. Fathers should protect their daughters from such people and society should shun them. But they aren’t rapists.

One of the drivers of reduced fertility is while fathers do indeed want grandkids, they don't want their daughters actually having sex.

I doubt many want to think about their daughters having sex but I doubt many fathers are upset about their daughters marrying a good man at an appropriate age and building a family.

Girl-dads perpetually see their daughters as 6yo princesses. They don't want them going to prom, they don't like them dating boys. Yes they want grandchild, but ideally through virgin birth. I suspect it makes you subconsciously feel like you spent all your life being her numero uno man just for some guy to stick his dick inside her. And I'm not convinced this can be "socially engineered" away.

I have girls but they are still young. I know fathers of girls who are older. His daughters asked what he wanted for Father’s Day. He asked them to come to church once a month. His reasoning, in part, was that it would be much better to meet a culturally compatible eligible bachelor at church compared to online dating.

So count one datapoint as inconsistent with your claim.

I would say it is consistent, he has an "acceptable" standard for what kind of man is allowed to touch his daughter, and how. It's irrational and emotionally conflicting, but that's human emotion I suppose. But would he be thrilled if his girls were clubbing and rotating one night stands, even if he wasn't religious?

I think your thesis is really overstating this, or is extrapolating from a group that is not normal. ‘Wanting your daughter to have sex in the context of healthy relationships with men you approve of’ is not maximally permissive or sex positive but it’s very far from thinking she’s 6yo and that you’ll be cucked if she ever has sex. It’s a parody of fatherly psychology.